by Penni Russon
The manager came over, looking harassed. But I was kind of into this. I didn’t even mind being kicked out. I mean, we’ve only been waiting for it for like eight years. I just wished Mieke could have been here to see it.
But then the manager, Mr Whitehouse, grinned. ‘Hi, girls. You know you’re welcome here. Anything they want, on the house,’ he said to the waiter. ‘Where’s your friend?’
‘She’s coming next week,’ Tilly said, relieved, grinning cheekily at the waiter.
‘Oh, well, bring her up when she does. Say hi to your dad for me,’ he said to Tilly as he left.
I glared at the waiter who’d tried to kick us out. ‘You heard him.’
‘Cokes with lemon,’ the waiter said. He looked annoyed and amused all at once. He glanced at Tilly again, who covered her mouth apologetically as if she was trying not to laugh, and went to get our cokes.
‘We go, girl,’ I said to Tilly and she did laugh this time, her head back, a big open-throated laugh.
Chapter Six
Tilly
The cute waiter brought us our drinks. ‘So, since you girls are like best buds with the manager, are you coming to Tank on Friday night?’
‘What’s Tank?’ I asked. Zara didn’t look up.
‘It’s a venue at the clubhouse after the restaurant closes. The music’s great, they get DJs down from Melbourne and Sydney and they have these totally random themes. Last week it was Aquarium. One guy came as one of those dudes with the heavy helmet thing, the ones you get in the bottom of fishtanks. He even danced in it. This week it’s Secret Identities. Clark Kent, Diana Prince, Wally West.’
‘Who?’ said Zara.
‘Superman, Wonder Woman, The Flash,’ I supplied.
He looked impressed. ‘Very good. No one guesses Wally West.’ He flashed a disarming grin in my direction. Then he looked from me back to Zara. ‘So are you coming?’
I didn’t say anything. I mean, it was obviously Zara he was inviting. I doubt he cared if I came or not.
‘Sounds okay,’ Zara said, looking the other way.
‘Cool. I’m Andrew, by the way, but all my friends call me Sawyer.’
‘As in the guy from that freaky show Lost?’ Zara asked.
‘As in Tom.’
‘From the book?’ I said. See, I always ask the cutting questions.
‘That’s right.’
Sexy and bookish? Hold me back.
‘I’m Tilly,’ I said. ‘This is Zara.’
‘Are you girls staying at the resort?’ he asked me.
‘Nah. We camp at the foreshore every year.’
‘Really?’ Sawyer said, as though he didn’t quite believe us.
‘What?’ Zara said grumpily. I could tell she wanted him to disappear. But I didn’t.
‘Let’s just say the girls I know who look like you don’t go camping,’ Sawyer said.
At least he included both of us in that statement, though I knew he meant Zara. Okay, he was stupid to say it, but look, to be honest, it wasn’t completely an unfair call. The girl who’s the Zara, the top alpha, at our school? Her name’s Cleo Macintyre. She’d die if she knew I was saying this, but she used to be my best friend back in primary school. We used to grub around in the dirt together down by the creek, setting traps for fairies and making these elaborate bee-catchers with sticks, leaves and mashed up flowers and honey (they never worked). Anyway, pretty much the day she turned twelve, she developed a serious allergy to dirt and to anything that involved exerting herself more than lifting a mobile phone to her ear. Talking to me, for example, acknowledging my existence? Yeah, that was a bit too strenuous.
But Zara looked offended. ‘Who asked you?’ she said to Sawyer.
I got into conflict-resolution mode – I hate confrontation. ‘I know I look really delicate,’ I said. ‘But that’s just the price of being beautiful. Sometimes I have to slum it. You know, to see what the unbeautiful people are doing. I mean, you never know when you’re going to have a hideous accident and wake up unbeautiful yourself. Or, worse, get a pimple. I have to be prepared for all possibilities.’
Sawyer stared at me. He tilted his head as if he was really looking at me.
‘It could happen,’ I said, unnerved.
‘To you?’ he said, and now he was looking right into my eyes. I suddenly wished I was wearing Zara’s enormous sunglasses. ‘Never.’
I know he was carrying on the joke. But my insides went squoosh and my nether regions went zing. Squoosh and zing. I’m sure everyone at the whole resort heard it.
I couldn’t sit still, not with him looking at me like that. I stood up. ‘Anyone want another drink?’ I asked.
‘Um, I’m like, your waiter,’ Sawyer said.
Even Zara was staring at me as if I was a complete freak. From underneath her sunglasses, but I knew she was.
‘Oh yeah, I’m . . .’ I waved my hand vaguely, and suddenly I had to get away. I walked off, still dazed and confused. Luckily I found myself outside the ladies toilets so I went in and consulted the mirror. Still pointy. My face I mean. Nothing had changed. I wasn’t suddenly a beautiful sex goddess. My hair was coming out of its ponytail – that’s what happens when you have frizzy hair. Go anywhere near the beach or out in the rain or in humid weather and your hair comes alive and starts threatening to take prisoners.
Sawyer was – no kidding – rock god material. The kind of slightly alternative rock that you like until you catch your mum humming along to it in the car. He had this lazy sexy smile, and these eyes, dark and fringed with beautiful lashes. I could run my fingers through those lashes. So why was he looking at me like that? Zing, zing and zing.
But when I came out of the toilets and saw he was looking at Zara with those fringed, dark eyes, I felt the familiar sagging disappointment that came with resignation. Of course it wasn’t me he was interested in. He was just a flirt. Some guys are like that. You know, they come up to you outside English class, look you in the eye, call you by your name and for a moment it’s like you’re the only person in the world, until the next, prettier girl comes along.
‘Yeah, so it’s a great night. You and Tilly should totally come,’ he was saying to Zara. ‘You can watch the surf, you know how the club’s floodlights shine out on the water after dark? Well, with the music and everything, it’s just, like . . . another world.’
Zara’s interest finally piqued. ‘Floodlights? Oh, yeah. Down on the beach. I’d forgotten they did that.’
I sat back down again. The conversation dried up. ‘So, those drinks?’ Sawyer offered.
Because I was the one who mentioned them, I had to nod, even though I really didn’t want him to go.
We had another coke each and then, after hanging out a little bit longer, watching Sawyer turn those eyes on every golf widow in the joint, we left. I was buzzing on caffeine and sugar as we walked up the beach.
‘He was nice,’ I said. ‘Didn’t you think he was nice?’
‘Mmm,’ Zara said, distractedly, looking out at the water.
‘Do you want to go?’ I asked eagerly.
‘Where?’ Zara said, quickly, looking at me almost suspiciously. Sometimes she’s just weird. Maybe it was the caffeine making her edgy. ‘Oh, you mean like the nightclub thing.’
‘Yeah yeah yeah!’ Buzz buzz buzz.
She shrugged. ‘It’s something to do.’
‘Yay!’ I didn’t mention the dressing up thing, in case she thought it was lame and changed her mind. But I did have to run in one big circle with my arms out pretending to be a plane. Come on, all that caffeine and sugar rushing through my body? It had to burn off somehow.
Zara laughed. ‘He was cute, I suppose,’ she said finally, poking me in the arm when I ended up back beside her.
I bounded like a puppy. ‘He was, wasn’t he.’ But what goes up must come down. Maybe it was the low after my sugar high, but I felt my stomach – and my expectations – drop. ‘I think he really liked you,’ I said.
Zara snorted. ‘H
e’s not my type.’
That’s injustice, isn’t it? I liked him, he liked her, and she couldn’t even be bothered with him.
‘Why not? He’s gorgeous,’ I said. Why was I trying to talk her into him?
‘You should totally go for it,’ Zara said.
‘Yeah, right.’
‘I’m serious.’
‘Like I’ve got a chance.’
‘Well, you won’t if you put yourself down all the time.’
I just shrugged. I was feeling really blue now. Deep blue. Cobalt. Navy.
‘Guys are . . . you know. They don’t care what you look like,’ Zara said. ‘They’re just animals. They follow the hormones.’
If it was meant to be reassuring, it wasn’t. Was she saying if they did care what girls looked like, I wouldn’t have a chance? And hey, since when did guys not care what girls looked like?
Zara looked at my face and said, exasperated, ‘Sometimes you’re so dumb for someone who’s so smart. It’s pheromones. It’s chemistry. You know, like science. You have to be a match. Guys don’t care who the prettiest girl in the room is or who the smartest girl is. You just have to smell right.’
‘Are you freaking kidding me?’
‘It’s science,’ Zara said. ‘Science doesn’t lie.’
‘Science? Or did you get this from a perfume advertorial.’
Zara thought about it. ‘Okay. Maybe it was from an advertorial. But it makes sense, right?’
I laughed and kicked sand at her.
‘Right?’ she said.
Chapter Seven
Zara
As soon as Sawyer mentioned the floodlights, like in that very second, a whole detailed plan was born in my head. It was a freaking eureka moment, you know, like that dude in the bath?
So that’s why I was there, scrabbling about in the pitch dark with the beach-box lock at eleven o’clock at night. ’Cause guess what? Turns out you can’t unlock a padlock in one hand while holding a tiny torch in the other. Even if it’s a Maglight torch that can be run over by a Mack truck, which apparently they can. Tilly told me.
I tried burying the torch in the sand, pointing at the lock, but the sand was too soft and it didn’t work. So I turfed the torch and did it by feel. There was a streetlight behind the beach boxes so it wasn’t completely dark, but it was shining right in my eyes, so it wasn’t helping either. Finally I got the door open. Everything was wedged in tight and it took me a while to work my surfboard out of the clutter. Mine’s the pink one, of course. My mum is obsessed with pink. It’s kind of grotesque in a grown woman. It was bad enough when I was four. Seriously. But every bike, every doll, every dress my mum has ever bought me has featured the colour pink in some kind of garish way. When I move out of home, I plan to burn every pink thing I own.
Except maybe my surfboard.
I left the torch at the beach box and walked up the beach, surfboard under my arm towards the golf club floodlights. Was I crazy, wandering around alone on the beach at night? Were there murderers and rapists lurking in the shadowy bushes? To be honest, I didn’t care. I didn’t really care about anything. Why didn’t I care? Was it part of the bored face? Could something inside me freeze too, could your heart freeze when the wind changed?
Well anyway, if there were murderers and rapists in the bushes, the sight of a girl struggling up the beach with a pink surfboard (okay, so it was night and they probably couldn’t see it was pink) must have been, I don’t know, offputting or something because they stayed in the bushes. I walked towards the golf club, which was lit up like a beacon in the dunes. The lights shone straight out onto the sea, reflecting against the dark surface and illuminating the white crests of the waves. I kicked off my scuffs, hoping I’d be able to find them again. I had my rashie and boardshorts on already, so after putting on my ankle strap and making sure it was attached to the board, I waded out into the water. The air was warm and balmy and even the sea felt as if it retained the heat of the day. I pushed myself out, holding onto the board, paddling forward. The tides are strong at Indigo, which is part of what makes it so popular.
It’s considered a safe surf beach (during the day, in good weather, when the beach is patrolled), though Chris, the guy who taught surf school, was quick to point out that there’s no such thing as safe surfing.
‘If there was,’ he said with a grin, ‘we wouldn’t do it. The fact that there’s consequences – dire consequences – that’s the rush.’
That’s what I was thinking about as I dived under the first wave, holding the board. Consequences.
It took me a while to get the rhythm of paddling. It was strange to be on a surfboard again, but good too. It felt . . . you know, right. I could hear my own breathing. A couple of times the board bobbed out from under me, or a rolling wave tipped me off. But after a while I stopped fighting it and remembered to move with the board. It’s when you try and keep it still, try to act like you’re on solid ground, that it beats you.
It was weird paddling out into the darkness. I was fighting my own instincts just to keep going. The part of me that’s wired for survival wanted me to turn around now, put the surfboard away, go back to my cosy tent and zip myself in. But pushing against this instinct felt good, like getting on a rollercoaster. Or when you’re abseiling, that moment where you jump into the abyss. I felt this crazy joy hammering against my ribcage.
I could see enough to see the crests of the waves coming towards me. I got out beyond the break and rested, waiting for my first wave. I stretched the muscles in my shoulders and arms. They were still warming up, they already felt tight and sore from paddling, but the pain was the good kind.
The water was a black sheet, all surface. Anything could be under there, swirling around in the darkness. I felt myself getting spooked as I waited for something to happen. I was nerve and muscle, ready to leap. A wave started to build, heading towards me. As I felt the board rise, I turned around, paddling, getting ready to stand up.
But the instant I turned around I was hit by the golf club lights burning the back of my eyeballs. A thousand fragments of light sprayed in front of me, disorienting me. As the wave lifted me I lost my nerve, hanging back at the last minute. The churning sea tossed me off the board and I went under. My eyes were open as I pushed against the wave, but in the darkness I had to guess which way was up. It wasn’t till I jarred my head on the sandy bottom that I realised I’d guessed wrong. The cord on my ankle pulled tight and my leg yanked up as my board bobbed onto the surface with me following it.
I was scared now, I admit it. Suddenly I realised how dangerous this was. It wasn’t like abseiling, where you’ve got harnesses and ropes and helmets to stop you if you fall, so it’s just an exercise of the mind, the danger minimal. Out here, tonight, there was nothing, no safety net, no anchor. The waves felt huge in the dark. I was going to have to do this by feel if I wanted to catch a wave. My head ached a bit where I’d whacked it and I was tempted to swim in, call it quits. But something made me stay. I paddled out and waited for another wave, and as I saw one build, I turned again, my eyes half shut. I felt the wave as it lifted, and when I was sure I was at the top of it, I stood.
The feeling of catching that wave, of pushing through the black water, my eyes adjusting so I could follow the curl of the water . . . I wish I had more words. I wish I had Tilly’s words. It was like I was the only person in the world. It was like I was part of the night sky. It was amazing. I felt this joy well up inside me, pushing out through my chest. I felt more lit up than the golf club. I was so pure. It wasn’t like flying. It was like . . . like nothing I could explain. Everything was heightened by the night. The waves were bigger and I seemed to be faster, I skimmed the surface of the ocean as if I was made of light.
I could feel the whole sea flowing up, through the board, into me. My body was the meeting point of sea and sky. My body and the board, meshed together: fibre-glass and skin, wax, sweat, saltwater. And in the middle of it all, in the midst of movement and action an
d energy, my mind felt perfectly calm. Like how inside a cyclone everything is meant to be peaceful and still. I was lit up. I was glowing.
It was unreal. As in not real. It was a dream ride. The best kind.
Of course I fell off the board, backwards, straight onto my bum, breaking through the surface of the water. But that didn’t make it less of a dream. This time I just relaxed under the water, enjoying the feeling of it as it enclosed me, letting myself plummet then rise. I let my board tug me upwards. I popped out of the water and hauled myself back onto the surfboard. I lay there panting. Suddenly I was really, really tired. My bones were tired. My arms felt heavy. I could have closed my eyes on that board and slept. Except now that I was wet the warm sea air was starting to feel chilly. At the same time a warm peace flooded through me, an afterglow.
I paddled back to the shore. My skin was buzzing, I felt electric – maybe it was the cold, maybe it was something else, some leftover joy. I found my shoes and carried the board back to the beach box and stowed it. Man, I was knackered, in a good way. Getting rid of the board lightened me up a bit and I walked back to the campsite, swinging my arms in the cold wind and just trying to get a bit of circulation back. I’d stashed my towel and some PJs in the girls shower before I went – see what I mean about the plan being detailed? – so I had a hot shower and dressed quickly, rubbing my hair dry in front of the mirror before collapsing into my tent. I thought I’d be asleep before my head touched down but I lay awake, staring out at the world and living it again – being on that surfboard, upright, balancing under a night sky – over and over in my head, like it was a movie, seeing it like I was somewhere above, outside myself, looking down.
Chapter Eight
Tilly
Zara wasn’t up when I went down to her tent. Usually Zara was the first awake, groomed and gorgeous before the rest of us had faced our soggy cereal, so it was weird that she was still asleep.
I drifted aimlessly away from her campsite. Every year when we came to Indigo I spent some of the time with Zara and Mieke and some of the time with my mum and dad and Teddy. And some time just hanging out on my own. So it wasn’t like I didn’t know what to do with myself. But I was restless, waiting for something to happen. As if something had a hold of me and was pulling me through summer, a huge gravity machine or a giant magnet. It was like a dream: I was looking for something – but what?